Horrible Coping Mechanisms [Training Dome, Guild] [Open]

"BZZZT" 

The doors of one of the levels of the Training Hall buzzed open as a lonesome individual walked in. Many words could describe this person. 'Depressed', 'worn down', 'exhausted', 'absent', 'gloomy', 'broken'. They were dressed in all black sporting gear. Snugly fitting leggings, sports bra, trainers. In one of their hands they were carrying a medium sized waterbottle and in their other hand a towel. Their fluffy fur poked out from the top of their top, cresting their neck in smooth, beige manes. The individual's large, purple and blue tail slowly swished back and forth as they walked towards the control panel of the hall. 

With a large sigh, the woman put down her items and started fidgeting with the controls, still quite unsure about all this hyper-technological stuff. It was pretty apparent they really didn't know what they were doing, and probably needed some help to figure it all out. However, after a little bit of trying out different buttons, levers and turn knobs, the woman managed to turn the arena into a hot desert. 

That was... quite the opposite of what she wanted, so with a frustrated groan she continued messing with the controls until she managed to get what she wanted. The end result was somewhat a mix of suburban houses edging a small park or forest. It was pretty nice and quiet, and seemed like a normal situation. 

The one thing that was a little off though, was the huge waterfall at the edge of the arena, ending in a river cutting through the middle of the room they were in, creating a divide between the houses and the nature part. "идеально..." (perfect) 

The woman slowly walked away from the control panel, making her way towards the river. When she got there, she straight up thrusted her arms into the water and kept them in there for a little while, as she stared at her heavily distorted reflection. When she pulled her arms back out, long claws made of ice grew on her hands, and they started to morph and shape around her limbs until both arms were covered in sharp gauntlets made of ice shards. 

"Time to practice."

The enormous horse was only a new member of the Guild, deciding to join shortly after being referred to them after an altercation on a freelancing mission. Small-scale expeditions were fine to do solo, but if Lisa ever wanted to go for the bigger yields, it'd have to be something she got company for. And if the price of good company was to help other people out on their missions, that was no difficult price to pay.

That being said, this was no mission, this was the training dome, or at least one of the many floors of the training dome. But she had no issue with coming and maybe even just having a look around at who was here. 

Lisa was taking the elevator between the training levels when on particularly caught her eye, a desert. She'd yet to visit anything like Shamar or Mizuri for their deserts, but they were places she wanted very desperately to get an eyeball on. All the best artifacts came from the harshest environments. So as the Elevator went just beyond this floor and began emerging into the next, she stopped it, reversed and then made her way back down.

Only now the floor was no longer a desert, and was instead an urban sprawl with a park. Oh well, she was just here to scope out the people anyway, and her interest was committed.

Then as the elevator door opened with the same BZZZT as it had before, the large horse, which was taller than even most humans, stepped out, having to duck as the elevators were designed for mobians with only some consideration for humans, let alone those larger than them.

"Hello!" Lisa called into the dome, impressed by the vastness of it's size and capability to match any real-world environment so well. If it weren't for the roof, you really couldn't tell this wasn't a real urban sprawl.

"Praat jy Afrikaans? Or just English?" She said finally, shouting only a little to project her voice to the... shadow? sitting by the river. The horse herself was wearing a green sleeveless vest with a white undershirt. On her powerful legs rested the usual heavy duty hiking trousers, and no boots were needed for the presence of hoofs.

The woman was so caught up in her own thoughts, that she didn't even hear the doors to the lift buzz open and close, which was quite the odd occurance for her. Normally she was quite alert and her hearing was phenomenal, so she would've noticed it in an instance. As the equine lady made her way towards the centre of the area, though, and greeted Aleks, the cat's ears swiveled back, and she froze, accidentally shooting some ice shards towards the approaching woman. 

"Боже мой!" (Oh my god) Aleks cursed in surprise. "Do not sneak up on me like this, stranger." What was this language this woman was speaking. Afrikaans? Never heard of it. What did that mean? "I do not know what you are saying. My apologies."

Aleks took a second to take in who was standing across from her. The woman seemed to be quite tall. In fact, it wouldn't surprise her if the horse was literally twice as tall as Aleks was, since she was quite short of stature. It also took her a second to notice she had in fact swung some ice towards the woman, finally spotting the shards on the floor not too far away from them. "I did not mean to attack you."

Were they here to fight? Aleks would be down for a fight. However, this particular individual was quite intimidating to her, and she was still recovering from her own wounds as well. She wasn't sure if this was the best idea, but at the same time she was quite tempted to test her strength against someone who was a goliath compared to herself.

"I assume you want to fight, yes? I will need a little second to prepare, if you will let me."

The horse had hardly expected to be immediately attacked, even if out of shock at being snuck up on, as she'd equally hardly expected to be sneaking up on the feline. But in all honesty, it wouldn't have been a surprise to the horse, if this were an expected combat situation. The fact of the matter had been that she wasn't expecting an immediate combat situation, when she really should have.

It was a training dome after all. by all means, the dark feline could have been taking cover or a hurried moment of respite midway through an intense battle with some Guild Opponent.

Thankfully neither was the case. And thankfully the tall equine was still alive after having startled a magic user. "That's quite alright." She replied, a small amount of shakiness still in her voice despite the amount of shock form being shot at being small, and her own attempts to swiftly calm herself. "I speak Afrikaans, its a southern Mizuri language. Was just wondering if you happened to know any."

Normally she wouldn't have accepted a direct challenge to a fight by a magic user, but it was fortunate enough that today Lisa had come into the guild to pick up her lightning wispon and have a look around the many wings. And she did seem to be much larger than the mobian cat, although that didn't cloud her awareness of the hidden potential in any magi. 

"As long as you're not planning to put me in hospital, I wouldn't mind a few cuts and bruises. A fight sounds like a great way to get a feel for what the Guild can offer!" Lisa nodded, oh- she hadn't introduced herself yet. "The name is Lisa by the way, although most people call me Excalibur... Or Cali if you like."

A moment to prepare would be more than appreciated. "Of course, of course." The large equine may have used a standard whip before, but the way a lightning wispon handled was very different, even if the result was the same. So she turned the weapon on; a long, thin, crackling cord spooled out from the lightning-shaped tip of the device. Fancy.

Challenge accepted? Nice. Time to get to business. Aleks was secretly a little scared of the woman in front of her, but at the same time, in order to become stronger and push past your limits, you should take on new and daunting tasks, right? Right. So let's do this. 

In all fairness, Aleks hadn't looked at the environment she herself put into this room much at all. All she wanted was a consistent source of water, and a versatile area to play around with. Something that offered both the challenge of a populated vicinity, and a quieter, more nature engulfed place. 

The woman quickly made sure to draw a little more ice towards herself and strengthen the icy gauntlets covering her arms, as well as growing some ice over the softer parts of her abdomen to create some natural armour. Behind one of the trees she started manifesting a couple of razor sharp shards that she then fused together to form a poleweapon, all the while making sure the sharp staff stayed out of the equine's line of sight. She sighed and looked back over to the horse, who... now... had an electric whip. Oh Chaos, what did she get herself into.

"Alright, I am ready. Whenever you are, let me know."

Lisa too was secretly, perhaps not scared, but wary of the feline in front of her. As an explorer of ancient - and often trapped - ruins, it was her job to get better at expecting the unexpected, making judgements based on observations. And what would be a safer way to do that than to get her ass kicked by something unexpected while fighting a fellow guild member?

The surrounding environment was perhaps a little more urban than the equine was going to face in her line of work, but in terms of challenge, the obstacles were near identical. Green space, tight quarters in the city-area on the edge of the dome. It was all there, and would surely make for some interest and challenge.

And while Cali was... made aware of Aleks' ice powers, she hadn't put 2 and 2 together with the river until the dark cat had covered herself with a layer of frozen armor. It seemed that in the fight to come, there would be some great need to keep the two of them as far away from the river as possible if she were to win. Though it wasn't inherently the purpose of the fight to win. It was to train, right?

Training at keeping someone away from their source of power... yeah. That sounded educational enough. Although she was unfortunately uneducated on the topic of the secret polearm being forced into existence behind one of the many trees in the urban parkspace. Lisa too had a staff, but left it behind in the car in favor of testing out the... frankly frightening whip she'd come to pick up. Polearm training would have been a blast, but here she was without it. 

There was certainly some concern on the Horses expression as she lifted the wispon's handle and raised the whip's tip up off of the ground. One could even say she was slightly horrified of the prospect of hitting someone with the thing. But perhaps she'd keep it to a tool of disarmament, defensive instead of offensive.

"I am ready if you are. Your move or mine?." Lisa said, putting one of her relatively massive equine legs into the soft soil behind her, to get a better combat stance. So as to not topple over should she be subjected to some impressive force, or to begin a sprint away from some overwhelming threat.

As Aleks went into full focus mode, her ears flattened against the back of her head. Thank Chaos she had already tied her beige and pink spotted hair up into a tight, slicked back ponytail, because it would have been impossible to do so with her hands and arms covered in ice. Her fluffy tail swished around as she carefully assessed the situation, thinking of what the best move would be. 

The quiet buzzing of the electric static of the whip felt like a swarm of flies in her head, somehow taking up a ton of her attention. The cat squinted and tried to shake the fear of the wispon, knowing she would be fine even if she did get hit. Surely the Guild wouldn't want any blood on their hands, right? 

After a short moment, the woman dug the claws on her feet into the soft soil below her as well and looked up at the horse. "I will start. Do not hold back." she said right before sprinting towards her sparring partner. Midway through her sprint, she launched herself up into the air with a mighty jump from all fours, and swung back one of her arms, drawing the poleweapon towars herself. 

"RRRAAAAAAH!!!" Aleks let out a thundering roar as she went to swing her weapon at the woman in front of her, attempting to land a blunt hit on the woman's shoulder whilst she herself was still in midair. The sudden release of energy also caused a surge of frosty air, creating several smaller shards of ice around the both of them. Thankfully, most of these shards were small enough to not do any damage at all, especially if one was wearing thick clothing or had thick fur.